August 22, 2024

The complexities of the CN and CPKC bargaining with the Teamsters Rail Conference are being glossed over across most (all?) of the media organizations.

Contrary to what is being thrown about in the media, the current bargaining dispute is all about automation and the right to free collective bargaining.

Capital wants to replace two Teamsters members with one when it comes to driving trains. The employers want to (need to) continue the precipitous drop in the number of employees they have been fully dependent on for profits over the previous 20 years.

Teamsters are concerned about the loss of members through this process and with it stability of their benefits program, pension fund, safety for their members on the job, quality of work, and all the obvious increased risks inherent in the cutting of crews in the rail system.

Added to this, the rail companies are angry at the increased costs from federal regulation changes, recent court decisions around the right to bargain and strike, and anti-scab legislation passing. The increased number of paid sick days is seen as an affront to the power of capital to only have labour costs decrease in the federal private sector. These paid sick days cause havoc in scheduling and mean that more workers need to be hired to fill the same amount of work. This decreases "productivity" (as capital measures it).

The right to bargain and strike in Canada, established after years of anti-worker legislation such as back-to-work legislation being struck down by the courts, is a particular sticking point for CN, CPKC, and all monopolistic federal companies. Capital had become accustomed to the state intervening on their behalf in labour negotiations. That hammer has less impact now. The only solution that the employers see is a state-imposed interest arbitration regime removing the right to strike and essentially the right to democratic bargaining from the federal private sector.

CN and CPKC have both colluded to get us to this point, to get what they want and to stick it to a government that they see as too pro-worker—a position that would be celebrated by working people if it was not so laughably ridiculous.

We see the costs of having two massive private monopolies running the rail segment of our supply chain. But, we are also witnessing the limits of that monopoly. Goods movement has been inconvenienced, but the sun came up this morning.

The state has been dragged into the situation because of the political nature of this round of bargaining. The answer is a real threat of re-nationalization of CN rail operations here in Canada and/or the establishment of regulations that increase costs for the rail companies. Things like the banning of replacement of workers by machines in certain categories, the establishment of augmentation as the watchword for technology implementation, and the forced investment in new and upgrade tracks, cars, and strong emissions standards for the locomotives.

The state is currently neutral. The response to this kind of aggressive attack on the economy in Canada by Capital should be a tilt toward labour's side.